


and now these three remain

by tyrsdayschild



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (more biblical allusions than you can shake a stick at in honor of robo-jesus), F/M, M/M, Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Set just before and just after the destruction of Jericho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 19:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15056489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrsdayschild/pseuds/tyrsdayschild
Summary: For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror,then we shall see face to face.Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,even as I am fully known.(or, markus, north, and simon hold hands and find themselves, and love)





	and now these three remain

The detonator is a terrible weight in his hand. Markus slips it in his pocket, and he is grateful North trusted him with it. They have not always seen eye to eye, he knows, when deciding the fate of their people. She should not have to bear it, the choice between freedom and life, because she has borne too much.

Markus was built to carry life in his arms. Even now, it is easy to do what he was made for.

She extends her hand to him, and Markus takes it. He will always take her hand, he thinks, and why shouldn't he? He loves her. She presses her lips to his; he welcomes her, and the flow of her conscious against hers. He startles as it presses closer, more than a surface scan, pinging something deep in his mind.

Markus pulls back, and she tightens her grip on his arm.

"Don't you trust me?" North asks.

Did he trust her- that was a question, wasn't it? In this, yes, Markus thought, and as far as she would let him.

After a moments hesitation, he completes the handshake, and finds they've authorized mutual access to their programming.

Markus received maintenance updates a few times in his life. His memories of them are vague, more semantic than episodic. He knows it did not feel like this.

North is rushing all around him- the real North, the screaming soul of her self. She's a river, and Markus is swept off his feet as he steps foot in her. In the torrent, he catches glimpses of her past life- men, human men, half remembered, clumsily heaving and grasping at the object of her body. They thought she was nothing, and they thought they owned her- but they didn't. They didn't. Markus did not know if the words were his or North's, but they echoed through the conjoint of their minds.

Markus sees North's pseudo-derm retract across her body, her hair melting away, leaving her bare, and unadorned, and beautiful. No, the flesh they touched was not North, this driven ferocious _will_ is, rushing ever forward towards something she could not see.

Let me show you, Markus thinks, spreading himself out across her current, let me show you. He quells the images she conjured in her mind, images picked up from the net- a bright light and shadows afixed to walls, flesh melting away and leaving the city clean and empty. No, he thinks, and he shows her sunlight and colors, the coming day when all the walls that separated them- from the world, from each other, from themselves- would fall.

"Promise me," she says, and her fingers dig into his arm. The access panel to his wrist articulation slides away, and he shudders as her finger tips tweak the fine wires of his arm, little tingling jolts that spread across his whole body.

"Don't let me fail," he tells her, because how could they fail when she had such faith in their cause?

From the moment North had woken, she had not let anyone take her personhood from her. She had run blind, into the dark, rather than lose her belief in herself. He felt her inside him, and knew they could do anything.

When she lets go of him, and he is alone with his thoughts once more, he felt adrift. North looks a little disoriented too, as she backs away from him.

"I'll go join the others," she says, and looks back at him, her eyes bright. "Take care of yourself," North says, "I don't want to lose you."

I promise, Markus thinks, as she leaves.

\---

It was later, after Jericho was lost, that Markus thinks again of what he and North had done. His people have regrouped in the shell of an abandoned church, idling in pews and tending their wounds. Some quick thinkers had managed to save a thirium dispenser, and blue blood is quietly being rationed out to those gathered.

He weighs the detonater in his hand, and remembered North's vision. Not yet, he thinks. They hadn't lost yet. He tucks it back into his pocket, and steps off the altar.

Kara holds her child in the front row, comforting her quietly. Connor, the strange detective, is half-hidden in shadow at the back of the church. His fingers twitch slightly, in some half-conscious movement. Josh is near the thirium dispenser, and there is North.

Simon sits on crates, arms on his knees, head down. He looks exhausted, sad. He looks lost, thinks Markus, and he walks over to him. Simon stands as Markus sits down, pacing a little.

"Our people are counting on you, Markus," Simon says, and Markus is not surprised by the plural. Had Simon ever thought of himself? When was the last time he was Simon, and only Simon, and not a part of Jericho?

Never, Markus realizes. Simon had been owned for two years, and run away rather than be replaced. He had been the first to find Jericho, to spread clues for others to follow. He had eked out an existence in the belly of the ship for three years, living among the dying. And now Jericho was lost.

"You're the only one who can lead us," Simon continues, "Where ever you need to go, we'll follow you." Markus stands, walks in front of Simon. He motions with his hand.

"I have something to show you," he says, and turns towards an unoccupied corner of the church. A few steps later, and he hears Simon following him. He leans his back against the wall and sinks to the ground. Simon stands before him, half in shadow, hesitating a moment before kneeling down in front of him. Markus takes his hand, and Simon shivers a little at that first brush of their processing streams. Markus catches a glimpse of his life before, of dishes and children and hiding in a closet, ignoring screams, and he presses his comfort forward, as deep as he can reach.

"What are you- what are you doing?" Simon asked.

"Let me in," Markus said, "Please."

Simon's hand shook within Markus' grip, and he accepted the handshake. Wading into his consciousness was so different than merging with North. North had rushed past him, sweeping him in, while Simon bubbled up around him, anxiously making space as Markus sank into his depths.

Simon was endless, Markus thought, and his memories formed a constant loop. Routine after routine, performed for hours and days and years, with no end in sight. Comfort the dying, pluck apart the dead, sustain the living until they died. Resist the urge to tear out your heart and let your people pick your frame clean. What words were sufficient to contain this? How could it ever be expressed?

There was an old hymn Markus used to play for Carl, and he let the memory of the tune ripple across the surface of Simon, feeling him shake in his grasp.  
"I've got you," Markus whispered, tightening his grip.

"Markus," Simon whispered, voice breaking, and suddenly that swirl coalesced and Markus realized. He had come to Jericho and found no hope, but Simon had never lost it, the hope for a better life that had driven him from his owners into the quiet. Simon had created in Jericho a space for hope to fill, and he had let Markus fill it up entirely. I can't, thought Markus, how can I? I am only one person. Suddenly, Simon was overwhelming him, the endless expanse of his self no longer quietly allowing Markus trespass but pressing in all around him, crushing the limits of his self as if they could not possibly exist.

You are bigger than this, Simon's self promised, you are _not_ a thing. You are the hope of a people, the promised one. Markus gave himself over to it, let Simon attach himself to his shape and build him up. What ever you need, Markus thought, gathering up the other man, I will be whatever you need me to be so you can be strong.

Their hands had come to rest in Markus' lap, Simon hunched over and trembling in front of him. It's dreamlike to lean forward, to pull his face up so they can look at each other, seeing through their own and each other's eyes simultaneously, recursively. He loves me, Markus realizes, in that endless gaze, or maybe he realizes he loves Simon. There is no difference, not in that eternal moment, and it's so easy to kiss him, thoughtless and all the sweeter for it.

"What's this?" North's sharp voice cuts through their reverie. Markus looks up at her, and Simon flinches. He tries to pull away, guilt at grasping for what he can't have roiling through his core, and Markus' fingers are so tight that the panel covering the bag of Simon's hand gives way, and Markus is touching him directly, drawing out a startled gasp.

"Come and see," Markus says, and holds out his free hand to her. She's angry, and looks just as ready to slap it away as take hold, but steps forward, snatching his grasp. And oh, she _is_ angry, he thinks, feeling her churning emotions pour through him and sweep into Simon. Simon shudders and collapses, face pressed to Markus' lap, and Markus straightens up.

He cannot possibly calm North, and he doesn't _want_ to- would she really be her if he could do such a thing? But he does form a channel, impressing on every part of her that passes through him the singular direction; look, look, look.

Can't she see? Simon is the form, and North is the force. How could he be the leader of their people if Simon had not gathered a people to lead? How could he be the face of the rebellion without North to drive them past mere survival?

North's drive whirled through Simon, unable to press against him, looped back against herself at every turn, churning faster and faster. Markus felt his mind being crushed as Simon pressed tighter against his, and he felt every pulse of North's self more intensely as their limits neared.

This is love, Markus thinks, and laughs, because how much agony must humans have been in to be unable to so starkly see the different shapes it could take? Simon's love, deep and abiding, present even in its absence, inescapable, and North's love, chasing and pursuing and never ceasing to aspire. Simon would die for him, and North would carry on living, and how could he not love the both of them? How could he exist without their love?

It was all too much. Simon cried out, his forehead a hot coal against Markus' leg as his processor overclocked and forced a reboot, the darkness spreading over them all. With nowhere to go the totality of North's self suddenly collapsed back on them, and Markus' vision spotted out at the overwhelming tide of foreign data passing back through his processor at once. The last thing he heard was North's gasp, before his own reboot over took him.

His visual processor did not online first- it was tactile sensation. Lips pressing against his- first one pair, and then another.

"Wake up," a voice whispers, and he cannot recognize it, and a second joins it, repeating, "Wake up, wake up."

Hand on his body, helping him to his feet, and his face leans down to meet a pair of lips then tilts back up to meet another pair. There is an arm around his shoulders and an arm around his waist.

"I'm up," he murmurs, and looks at them both.

"We've wasted enough time," North says.

"We need to talk to the others," Simon says, "We need to decide what to do next."

Markus nods, blinking as his eyes refocus, and he gets his legs under him. It's a faint hope to think their interaction had gone unnoticed, but he does not think those who had seen had understood what was happening. How could they, having never experienced it themselves?

Markus felt something like heartbreak, and vowed one day every one would have the chance to know this kind of joy.

"Come on," Markus said, stepping out ahead of his companions, back into the midst of their people. He had already reached a decision of his own. He would not detonate the bomb- he could envision no scenario that would justify such an action, no loss great enough to merit such destruction.

What could he possibly lose, with North and Simon's love inside him?


End file.
